


Only As Creators Can We Destroy

by yesdrizella



Category: Rope (movie)
Genre: 1000-3000 words, 1940s, Age Difference, Angst, Backstory, Break Up, Character Death, M/M, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Teacher/Student
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:32:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesdrizella/pseuds/yesdrizella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trip to the past:  a timeline of first loves, farewells, and missed warning signs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only As Creators Can We Destroy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cendri (crankyoldman)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/gifts).



> Words in blockquotes are excerpts from _The Gay Science_ by Friedrich Nietzsche, taken from either the translation by Walter Kaufman or the text _The Good Life: Hackett Readings in Philosophy_, edited by Charles Guignon. Concepts from Nietzsche's _On the Genealogy of Morals_ are also referenced. Several facets of the story have been inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case on which the play/film are based. An extra thank you to Naiad, Shay and my best friend, Twig, for being such wonderful, honest betas. You ladies have helped this story grow by leaps and bounds!

> God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!...

Rupert Cadell walked the halls of Somerville Preparatory Academy with unshakable dignity. The recess bell had rung, and teen-aged boys were scrambling out of class and toward the dining room, or the school entrance, or anywhere that provided an escape. Slow down, he would tell them, gently but firmly, and they would. Whenever he commanded respect, these sons of New York businessmen, real estate tycoons and oil magnates would acquiesce.

"Nietzsche believes God is dead because we have finally realized that we have no use for him! If we are made in God's image, that means we, too, are creators!"

Rupert followed the unusual conversation to an empty classroom, where he found two boys by the corner window, one threatening the other with a spine-cracked paperback. He recognized the aggressor as Brandon Shaw and his victim as David Kentley, both first-years, roommates and – oddly enough - friends.

"You see, if we banished God from our universal consciousness, then we would be forced to rely on ourselves to establish some kind of order. Except that would be impossible because none of us will agree on what that order can be. If there can be no absolute order, then there can be no absolute morality!" Brandon practically stabbed the book with his index finger. "This is an amazing discovery! How can you stand to be so unimpressed?"

"Brandon." David sighed and pleaded. "Brandon, I'm tired. And I have a homework assignment to finish. Please, will you let me-" David stopped, and he widened his eyes when at last he looked toward the doorway. "O-oh, hello, Mr. Cadell."

"Hello, David." Rupert stepped aside as David scampered out, then strolled casually into the room. "So you've been reading Nietzsche? And you understand it?"

"Of course I do." Brandon frowned as he tucked his book into his satchel. "And I'm exhausted. Trying to expand the minds of these oafs has proven to be more challenging than I had anticipated. I might as well be Sisyphus."

There was something about the manner in which Brandon expressed his scholarly frustration that resonated with Rupert. He knew better than to encourage a boy toward nihilism, but he could also tell that Brandon was no ordinary boy.

"Come along, Brandon." Rupert guided him to the door, hand on his shoulder. "I believe we have much to discuss."

+++

> When we love a woman, we easily conceive a hatred for nature on account of all the repulsive natural functions to which every woman is subject.

Every day after supper, Brandon would arrive at his office at 8 P.M., punctual as a clock. He would sit at Rupert's feet while Rupert read aloud excerpts from Nietzsche's books, and they would have lively, fearless discussions until bedtime. Though Brandon was prone to making smart-aleck retorts, Rupert quite enjoyed the idea of teaching the next generation of philosophers.

"All right, Brandon. What did you notice as I was reading?"

Brandon hugged his knees and tucked them under his chin, concentrating on a spot in the carpet. "Nietzsche... he almost always exclusively mentions men. But when he mentions women, it's always with...a rather patronizing tone."

"Very good. Now—"

"Why is that? Did he not like women?"

"No, he didn't hold a very high opinion of them, but—"

"Neither do I. They're aggravating and are always going on about their looks or other trivial-"

"Would you like me to continue or not?" Brandon, once admonished, held his tongue. "Thank you." Rupert explained why women and nature concerned Nietzsche, and Brandon listened, quietly enraptured.

+++

> What does your conscience say? - You shall become who you are.

One overcast autumn Sunday, Rupert found Brandon sitting on a stone bench outside the boys' dormitory, attempting to sketch some kind of bird from memory. It looked like a crow, but it could very well have been a raven. Brandon would likely have known the difference.

"Good afternoon." Rupert walked up to, but did not sit beside him. "Keeping yourself busy?"

Brandon shrugged without looking up, fingers tight around his pencil. "I suppose I could be playing football, but I have no desire to roll around in filth." Still, he perked at the shouts and whoops of his classmates in the distance, a silent longing marked by the downcast turn of his eyes. He opened his mouth, but seemed uncertain, then worried his top lip with his teeth. "Mr. Cadell, is it odd that I don't particularly care for people, yet I still seek their company?"

Brandon was a curiously bright young man. At 13, he had already mastered four languages, excelled in college-level mathematics and knew Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ nearly by heart. In a sense, Brandon was a scholar among laymen, so Rupert could not help but feel a curious sort of kinship with him. "No. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"Somehow, I knew you would understand," Brandon said, and it was the first time Rupert had seen him smile.

+++

> I welcome all the signs that a more virile, a more warlike age is upon us, an age that above all will return bravery to its place of honor!

That same winter, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on the Axis powers. Both Rupert's grandfathers and his father served in the Army, and an overwhelming sense of pride prompted him to enlist. Five weeks later, Mr. Hastings, the third-year English instructor, signed on as replacement housemaster. Rupert was to report to Fort Drum in two days.

The school organized a farewell party, and every student was in attendance, or so Rupert thought. After circling the room twice, shaking hands and reminiscing, he realized that he had not seen Brandon.

His intuition proved him right when, later, he found Brandon by the same stone bench outside his dormitory, shoulders slumped and eyes on the ground. The wind began to howl and a light snow was falling, so Rupert did not mince words. "Come in out of the cold, Brandon."

"I'm bothered that you're leaving."

The snowfall intensified, but Rupert paid it no attention.

"There's no one else at this school I can talk to. No one who understands how smart I am." Brandon wrapped his arms around himself. "I know it would be foolish to ask you to promise that you will return... and I won't." The rest, he left unspoken.

Rupert breathed in two lungfuls of thirty-degree air, and he drew an arm around Brandon, wondering how he could have forgotten that for all of Brandon's genius, he was still just a boy. "You're right. I can't promise that I will come back. I can only promise that I will try."

+++

> The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves!

  


  


+++

> It will be the strong, domineering natures who, in such a compulsion, in such a constraint and completion under their own laws, will savor their most refined joy.

In the spring of 1944, a wounded right leg and a Purple Heart shipped Rupert Cadell back to Somerville. Military doctors said it would take a year before he could regain the full use of his leg, and he would have to use a cane in the meantime. So Rupert did what came naturally to him: he went back to work.

The boys and the administration received him with open arms, but no one was happier or more relieved than Brandon. Within two days, they had regrouped and resumed their bull sessions on the great thinkers of the Western world: Descartes, Montaigne, Rousseau, Hobbes, Mill, Kant, Kierkegaard, and of course, Nietzsche.

"But what does that mean? How can Nietzsche claim God is dead in one book, then say we are not yet rid of him in another?" Brandon had grown four inches in height and become quite the athlete, but he was still as winsome and clever as ever. "That makes absolutely no sense!"

Phillip Morgan, the only friend of Brandon's who had not yet walked out on the debate, shrugged his newly broad shoulders. "Maybe it's Nietzsche's way of saying his corpse has been left behind."

"Oh Phillip, _really_, if you have nothing intelligent to contribute—"

"Now, I think Phillip raises an interesting point." Rupert ignored the absolute shock on Brandon's face and continued. "Recall if you will, the madman mentioning that gravediggers were in the process of burying God's corpse. 'Don't we yet smell the divine rot? For gods rot, too.' There are no wrong answers in philosophy, Brandon."

Phillip smiled the smile of one who was not accustomed to raising interesting points. Brandon scowled at them both.

+++

> All of us harbor concealed gardens and plantings; and, to use another metaphor, we are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption; but how near or distant that is, nobody knows – not even God.

Brandon, Phillip, and the rest of the class of 1945 should have been celebrating on their graduation day, but too many felt the extra weight of conscription on their shoulders. The war in Europe showed no end in sight, and over half of the graduating class had already registered for selective services. Brandon was no exception; he would be turning 18 at the end of the year.

After the ceremony, Brandon asked to speak to him in private, so Rupert led the way to the familiar stone bench. When they sat, Rupert turned toward Brandon, but Brandon stared straight ahead.

"I don't want my education interrupted by a war, Mr. Cadell." His voice threatened to waver, but he managed to fight through it. "And I don't want to leave this place. I have fond memories here. I—" He glanced down at his lap and balled his hands into fists. "I don't want to leave."

Rupert chose his words on the assumption that he would not be seeing Brandon for some time. "I know. And I wish I could reassure you. But I can only tell you to be brave. There are so many problems that we will never solve. So many simpletons occupying so much space, and for what? To fight their wars? To fight each other? And if we, the privileged few, did away with them, then what? Only murderers would be left behind." Rupert held tight his shoulder, prompting Brandon to look into his eyes as he said, "You alone have the power to see past the nonsense. Be brave, Brandon, and never hesitate."

Brandon blinked once, twice, then leaned forward and kissed Rupert on the mouth.

Rupert felt as though he had been frozen in place. He wanted to believe that this was, by far, the least likely thing that could have happened between them, and yet the secret self deep inside knew better.

Four months later, the war was over, Brandon began his first year at Harvard, and Rupert remained behind.

+++

> I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things – in this way I will be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati [love of fate]: let that be my love from now on!

Harvard was a short drive from Somerville, so Brandon would return now and again to pay Rupert a visit at his office. Rupert would steep them a cup and listen as Brandon expounded on the challenges of his courses or the new questions and insights they have raised. As the lapse between the kiss and the present grew further apart, Rupert decided that he would not speak on the subject unless Brandon did - a plan that worked to his benefit, considering that Brandon acted as though the moment had never taken place.

Today, they were discussing the comparisons between Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's superman when Brandon suddenly trailed off on a thought. He then looked into his teacup with an awkward guilt, as though he were past the age of longing for something.

"Is something wrong, Brandon?"

Brandon lifted his eyes, but he did not look at Rupert. "I think about that kiss every day."

Rupert nearly dropped his cup.

"Sometimes, when I'm disturbed by dreams, I enjoy pretending I'm at Somerville again. At our bench, and you're sitting beside me. And you're holding my hand—"

"Brandon." Rupert swallowed hard, like he had nearly choked on a pill. "You have to understand, you're still very young—"

"But I'm brilliant! Haven't you always said that I was smarter than my own teachers?"

"Be that as it may, I don't think this—"

"Rupert, please. I don't fit in at—" Brandon stood from his chair and hovered wildly over Rupert. "There was a girl. Janet. And I tried to—but I couldn't. She called it quits three days ago, and I was relieved. _Relieved_. Because I didn't want to lie anymore." He braced his hands on the arms of Rupert's chair and leaned close, voice uncommonly vulnerable. "Please, don't make me lie."

Brandon kissed Rupert again. Not knowing why, Rupert kissed back.

+++

> This has given me the greatest difficulty and goes on being my greatest difficulty: to recognize that unspeakably more depends on what things are called than on what they are.

They carried on their affair in secret. They would meet whenever their schedules allowed, but weekly suppers soon became weekends at clandestine locations, in rooms stocked with champagne and scented with smoke.

Brandon was loud, eager, but never demanding, which pleased Rupert. He deplored nags, and he did not want to entertain one in his bed. And though Brandon was inexperienced, he learned quickly, as he did with all things. Indeed, there were moments when Brandon's mouth, so low on his own body, had him believing in God. And whenever they were finished, Brandon was always a sight to behold: his perfect hair mussed, his skin dampened with sweat, his mouth decorated with a cigarette and a smile of complacence.

Which is why Rupert did not know how to continue this affair without disappointing one of them.

Rupert wanted to become the William Randolph Hearst of academia. He wanted to run a publishing company for research reports, dissertations and other intellectual fare suitable for men like himself. Philosophers may not have been in high demand, but he had dreams, dreams much grander than the two of them. Ultimately, he realized that he could not sit in silent wait for Brandon to graduate.

"I'm sorry, Brandon," Rupert said, on the eve of Brandon's third year. "I'm afraid it's over."

Brandon, who had been buttoning up his dress shirt, gave pause. He blinked once, twice, then threw his head back and laughed. "You almost had me going! I won't let you pull a fast one on me that easily!"

"I only wish I were joking." Brandon's entire bearing fell as though he had been deflated. Even his knees buckled. "Do you remember when I told you that I've wanted to operate my own publishing company for some time? Well, I'm moving to New York to do just that. I will not be able to see you often, if at all. I reasoned that breaking it off now would spare us the annoyance of it later on."

"But...Rupert, no." Gone was Brandon's usual bravado, replaced by a tremulous fear he had seen only once before – the day of their second kiss. "No, I don't understand."

"You're a man of astounding intelligence. One day you will understand."

"If you're trying to console me, you're doing a rotten job of it."

Rupert did not think Brandon capable of tears, so he turned his back before he could know for certain. "I don't have a congenial way to say this. I'm moving on with my life. I suggest you do the same."

+++

> In every case where human beings begin to discover to what extent they are playing a role and to what extent they can be actors, they become actors.

A year later, Rupert met Brandon for lunch at an out-of-the-way Manhattan corner cafe, which Rupert found strange until Brandon explained that he did not want to be seen.

"I'm not ashamed to be seen with you, of course. I just don't want Phillip to catch us, and he wouldn't catch us here." Brandon fiddled with the napkin holder. "You understand, don't you?"

"Oh yes, I understand." Rupert understood that Brandon and Phillip were currently "together", but little else. "Looking forward to graduation?"

"Yes! Yes, indeed." Brandon drummed his fingers on the table with an uncharacteristic excitement. "How goes your noble work?"

"Wonderful! Just—" Rupert paused, then thought better than to mock Brandon's intonation. "Just wonderful." Their coffee had arrived, and Rupert eyed the way Brandon handled his cup, his hands shaking as though he were beset with tremors. He set his own cup down and cleared his throat. "So now may I ask why you have invited me here?"

"I—I'm having a party soon." Brandon lowered his cup. "Before graduation. At my mother's apartment on the Upper East Side. Which is my—our apartment now. I would appreciate it if you joined me and Phil—if you joined us."

Rupert did not yet want to draw attention to Brandon's nervous energy, so he asked the next most logical question. "Do you mean to tell me that you drove all the way down from Harvard just to invite me to a party?"

Brandon tittered, which then became a too-loud laugh. "I so abhor using the telephone, don't you?"

Rupert narrowed his eyes, no longer able to ignore Brandon's near-convulsive manner. "There's something you're not telling me." When Brandon snapped out of whatever had possessed him, he pressed on. "Isn't there?"

Brandon composed himself and just as quickly averted his gaze. When he spoke, his tone was almost prophetic. "No. I've told you everything you need to know."

+++

> Those who are richest in the fullness of life, the Dionysian god and human being, can permit themselves not only the sight of the terrible and questionable, but even the terrible deed, and the luxury of destruction, disintegration, negation.

Rupert almost didn't recognize Brandon when two armed guards dragged him into the prison visiting room. His head was shaved, his left eye purpled and swollen. He wore manacles around his wrists and ankles, his uniform a drab gray. Rupert did not think it would physically hurt him to see Brandon in such a state, but he felt it: a bone-deep ache, down to the very cells in his marrow.

Once Brandon was seated, Rupert gently but firmly made his introduction. "Hello, Brandon."

Brandon nodded. "Rupert. To what do I owe the honor?"

"I've come to say my piece."

"Oh? Had you not said enough at the trial?"

"What I mean to say is, I've come to make amends." The words lodged in his throat, and he forced himself to excavate them. "You are a man, and you are ultimately responsible for your actions. The justice system saw to that. But in some ways, I feel that I have failed you. In many ways, I had taken advantage of you. There were times when I saw myself in you, and I believed that gave me the right to mold you in my image. I was so invested in your mind that I neglected your heart." Rupert wanted to hold his shoulder, to fall back on the familiar, and it pained him to know that he couldn't. "And for that, I am truly sorry."

Brandon did not speak for several minutes, the silence between them almost impenetrable. Rupert tried to think of how to make a polite exit, until at last, Brandon breathed in deep of the stale, prison air. "Apology accepted. Are you finished?"

"...Yes." Rupert picked up his fedora as he rose from his seat, and he held it to his chest. "Good-bye, Brandon. Give my best to Phillip, should you see him."

"I shall."

+++

> Only as creators can we destroy.

Five months later, Rupert had learned from a colleague who was friends with the warden that Brandon Shaw was murdered in the shower room by a fellow inmate.

Brandon's estate had requested that no flowers be placed on his grave. Rupert did not comply.

**Author's Note:**

> I am the original writer assigned to Cendri. She had asked for a look into Rupert and Brandon's past, with a possible hint toward their affair in the play. Hopefully this is what she wanted, and I was able to do both the film/play and the characters justice. Thanks for reading!
